Christine's walking & birds blog

The trouble with waxwings is, you just can't stop watching and snapping them. I counted 90 today from the bedroom window, sitting like black blobs up in high branches out the back. Little raiding parties would swoop down, across our bungalow, and into our neighbour's garden, where they fed in a tree with pinky-white berries. Creeping out onto the porch, I took a few pictures when they perched at the very edge of our garden.




And then, about midday, I noticed one on the very top of our tall cypress. A garden waxie! It struck me that with its puffed-out posture, drooping wings, and daft crest, it had something of the look of a penguin about it.


Their trilling fills the air, but I haven't succeeded in recording this rather thin, high sound. Sometimes one will fly up from a branch with a clap, or rattle, of its wings, and seem to catch a fly. Difficult to believe there are insects about in these freezing conditions, with snow on the hills and morning frosts at sea level; but we saw stonechats and rock pipits also fly-catching at Achnahaird a couple of days ago, and something tiny that might have been a winter stonefly landed on the windscreen.

Once again, I've tried putting apples out on branches in the garden - and as usual, the birds ignore them. You see pictures of waxwings, redwings, and blackcaps feeding enthusiastically on apples in other people's gardens - but whenever I've put them out, whether here or back in Taplow, nothing seems interested. Not even the rooks and gulls.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the sight and sound of the waxwings while the berries hold out, because one day soon, we'll wake up and they'll be gone.